Problems With Update 97.8a - Yes or No

[Acorncomputer]

From RS.com Blog -

RailWorks 97.8a Save Crash bug
After much effort, here are the official team findings on the Save Crash bug currently present in RailWorks 97.8a.

Symptom
When saving after editing a route in RailWorks, a crash can occur which causes the tiles being edited to be lost. Recovery is only possible from backup versions.

Cause
Scenery can be placed in a RailWorks route. If this scenery is then uninstalled, without it being first deleted from the route, a 'Missing Scenery' flag is generated. This flag is listed in the LogMate program, and is shown as a "Milk Bottle" in the route .

Historically, this Milk Bottle would be left in place until the uninstalled scenery was restored. However, the code was previously changed so that when a tile featuring missing scenery was edited, the references to these missing items were replaced with blank information.

In the latest update to RailWorks (97.8a) this blanking code change was removed, because it caused the error - Missing Blueprint Blank/Blank in LogMate.

However , making this second change led to confusion in the code as to whether a "blank" or "missing pointer" was required in the tile. Thus, in some situations, RailWorks attempting to save blank data, which resulted in an application crash.

Manual File Editing
It should be noted, that as no official method is currently available for removing provider/product asset sets from a route once they have been added, manually altering these settings by editing a routes properties, will ultimately cause the above issue.

Default Routes
We have found instances of this problem in routes supplied with RailWorks and also in add-ons supplied by RailSimulator.com.

Temporary Solution
As an interim measure, it is possible switch on a backup facility built into RailWorks which will save all files edited during a session in the World/Scenario Editor. It is possible to make use of this automatic backup facility right now. For details on this facility please see HERE.

Remedy
The Dev team are currently working on a solution to stop RailWorks crashing in the event of attempting to save blank data. It is also our intention to revert back to the process of absent scenery being replaced by a Milk Bottle until that scenery is restored. This fix will be issued as soon as it is practical to do so.

As noted above, until an official method of removing provider/products from a route is implemented , we do not recommend manually trying to alter the contents of the tiles.

We are sorry for the problems this issue has caused and are working diligently to prevent a reoccurrence.

Thanks very much to the team at RS.com for the explanation. It is appreciated that you have told us what has gone wrong and what you are proposing to do to fix it.

[AndyUK]

But why not as an interim solution put back on Steam the previous version that as far as I know didn't cause "fatal" errors and damage users' work? Those that don't check here or on the RS.com blog won't know about the problems until they find them! The RS.com website has no mention of the problems, only the enhancements in 97.8a.

Is 97.8a still lurking on Steam ready to do damage to those not aware of its pitfalls?

Andy L

[Acorncomputer]

I have to say that whilst I very much appreciate RS.com explaining what the problems are, I am still very much an observer as far as RailWorks is concerned as I am continuing to build my routes in Rail Simulator as it is very stable and problems like this do not directly affect my work. I am transferring my routes occasionally to RailWorks to see if they are still transferable and now have the knack of doing this as it is not as straightforward as it could be and the files require some tweaking to get them to work.

I still feel that Steam is more of a hindrance than an asset and the continual updating and re-updating to fix fixes does not help and it would be much better to have tried and tested updates every couple of months or so which I feel would be a more organised approach to the updating and verification of the program. It would help if RS.com also tested the updates on third party and community routes as well. This would be pretty easy to do, just send a copy of the proposed update to route authors to test as well.

Having said that, I do support RS.com and the development of RailWorks, it just seems to be an uphill struggle some of the time.

[Basherz]

But why not as an interim solution put back on Steam the previous version that as far as I know didn't cause "fatal" errors and damage users' work?

I agree Andy as too often, at the moment anyway, we are all left in the lurch for the next 4 days, if an update turns out to be a "duffer".

Is 97.8a still lurking on Steam ready to do damage to those not aware of its pitfalls.

Yes, I think all the updates are sitting on the steam server, especially for new users.

[TractorBasher]

I have had quite a few problems in playing newly created scenarios post 97.8a update.

It sounds similar to the problem I've had with a scenario I've created, although mine was started before the recent update. I can edit it without problems but can't get it to load to play it.

[sniper297]

Hmmm. Well, I haven't done any further testing since I'm busy trying to finish signals, speed limits, and markers (in the railsim editor, copying over to railworks only to test drive), but none of the above applies to me. The tile in my route that I got the crash and zero bytes on never had anything but default objects on it, I never used RW_Tools or any manual hacking to remove anything from the blueprint preload, and never manually edited any of the scenery bin files. I always do crazy experiments on a clone of the route first rather than the actual working copy, so I never had any milk bottles in there to begin with.

At acorncomputer;

I am transferring my routes occasionally to RailWorks to see if they are still transferable and now have the knack of doing this as it is not as straightforward as it could be and the files require some tweaking to get them to work.

Trick is to remember what's different, RouteProperties.xml and scenarios, everything else is still the same. What I do is edit in railsim, then copy the \MixMap, \Terrain, \Scenery, and \Networks folders ONLY from the railsim route to the railworks route, since nothing else is affected by route editing. (Some of the default routes have a \ProceduralScenery folder in them, never seen one in any addon.) Done that way instead of copying the entire \4ee01963-7f3d-44d8-9c0f-f9749d4eaa73 (or whatever your number is) folder you don't need to tweak anything.

[Acorncomputer]

Trick is to remember what's different, RouteProperties.xml and scenarios, everything else is still the same. What I do is edit in railsim, then copy the \MixMap, \Terrain, \Scenery, and \Networks folders ONLY from the railsim route to the railworks route, since nothing else is affected by route editing. (Some of the default routes have a \ProceduralScenery folder in them, never seen one in any addon.) Done that way instead of copying the entire \4ee01963-7f3d-44d8-9c0f-f9749d4eaa73 (or whatever your number is) folder you don't need to tweak anything.

The main problem seems to be with the conversion of the scenarios.bin file which needs to be split up into individual files for each route. The integral installer in RailWorks does not do this job properly and creates new files for some scenarios, leaving one or two without a new file. This is enough to stop the route from loading in RailWorks with the 'something bad has happened message'. In fact it is not that bad really if you know what is wrong. The solution is to select and copy the relevant scenario instructions from the scenarios.bin file in the Rail Simulator folder and create a new file for RailWorks using just that information and place that in the faulty scenario folder in RailWorks. Not something that everyone could work out but I doubt that RS.com will now correct this fault at this stage as there are probably only a few people now wanting to transfer from RS to RW, but some people may have already given up if they have experienced this problem.

Another distraction is that scenarios, even free roam scenarios, fail to load and although there is now an error message, it is not a comprehensive report. A error message that tells you a siding marker is missing, for example, could really mean that stock is missing at that siding marker and not that the marker itself is missing. Running RW Tools will help to identify any stock that was in Rail Simulator but is not in RW and is therefore missing as far as the scenario is concerned.

Having sorted out these quirks, I still find that my RS routes are not the same in RW, in particular the traffic is sparse or non-existent in RW whereas in RS it was busy and lively. The traffic does go from ribbon to ribbon now when the spawner decides to send a car into the game, but that is not very often.

Ground shadows (not pencil shadows) are not too successful as they tend to make the textures look dirty rather than shaded and do not appear for every object. I also get round shadows for oblong objects and shadows for objects that are only a couple of inches off the ground. Still, these are not major concerns and I am sure that over time these quirks will be fixed.

I look forward to the day when I can have complete confidence in the stability of RailWorks so that I can start a new route without having to battle with the program.

I have said it many times now and make no apologies for saying it again. Steam may be convenient for RS.com and people who only use RailWorks but it is a very unfriendly system for people creating content. My original concerns about Steam having the ability to stop you running the program at any time were neatly demonstrated by Matt's problems recently - http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 13&t=98999 - and regardless of the number of times I am told that Steam will not stop the program running, the proof is there.

On a more positive note, I have just taken delivery of a super laptop and both Rail Simulator and RailWorks look absolutely stunning (over-used word but appropriate in this case) in a higher resolution and with the help of two graphics cards, and both programs run very well. The computer is also dual booted for XP and Windows 7 and both programs work well in both versions of Windows.These programs are capable of delivering extremely high quality graphics with the right equipment and the details on the default locos in particular are breathtaking (another over-used word but appropriate again). If you are serious about using RailWorks then I would recommend spending out on good quality hardware if you can.

[growler37]

Hi
I think the problem here is that the updates are released without testing on a wide enough range of situations, There is a core of serious route builders here in for the long haul,using assets from various sources,ie; default ,home built, Etc, were different problems can occur,the more route and asset configurations that an update can be tested on the better,what may work on my project, may cause problems on another builders route,with many hundreds of man hours invested into serious route projects the approach of an update always makes me nervous,even though i backup! backup! and backup again,i have said before RS.COM are too insular with there testing policy,and this is were they come unstuck.
I was so lucky with the last update, i was having a few days break from my project,and read about the problems before using steam, so i had the chance to disable autoupdate a lesson learned i think.
Regards
Kevin

[125900]

I have a problem with this update. A route that I was working on now fails to load at all. I have backups, but they don't work either. I've tried e-mailing for support but so far have been ignored. I really don't want to lose the route as it was starting to take shape after so many hours of work. If anyone knows a solution I would be very greateful to hear it. As for railworks I think the old days of rail simulator were better. At least an update could be easily uninstalled, steam just doesn't provide enough flexibility.

An angry rail fan

[stuart666]

I have a problem with this update. A route that I was working on now fails to load at all. I have backups, but they don't work either. I've tried e-mailing for support but so far have been ignored. I really don't want to lose the route as it was starting to take shape after so many hours of work. If anyone knows a solution I would be very greateful to hear it. As for railworks I think the old days of rail simulator were better. At least an update could be easily uninstalled, steam just doesn't provide enough flexibility.

An angry rail fan

When you say backed up, how did you backup? Using the new system they revealed you could turn on, or saving it using the packager? Using the latter, I would really delete all the contents of you particular folder in the asset folder, before trying to reinstall.

As for the other, I dont think there has been much comment so far on whether it works or not.

[Acorncomputer]

Hi

There may be another problem with the latest update.

In testing my new notebook computer with version 97.6a, all seems to run well with all settings set to max except for the shadows which I have turned off. There are some expected small problems but nothing significant. Everything looks just great.

In running the same routes on version 97.8a, I get a significant 'rubber banding' effect where the loco will run smoothly but the background moves in large leaps. I thought my new computer was at fault but I now feel sure that after comparing both versions of the program, it is something to do with version 97.8a.

Can anyone else replicate this highly undesirable effect?

[CaptScarlet]

I have reported a couple of default scenarios that do that ( mentioned earlier ) , it may be related to but not he same as the delivery day problem which they have fixed so we will just have to see when the new patch is released if these problems have been rectified.

John

[Oldpufferspotter]

Total number of votes : 80. That total has remained the same for a few days now. Are there really only 80 people creating routes and scenarios in RailWorks?
99.99% of people then are presumably simply Games Players, running ready made freeware and payware scenarios.
Just an observation.
regards Ted.

[msdejesus]

I do create scenarios (not routes yet), but fortunately I was cautious enough as to run steam offline before the latest patch came out, hence I have not been affected by it. I am still running version 97-6a.

I am sure I am not the only one who decided to take this measure.

Regards

Manuel

[Oldpufferspotter]

Hi Manuel,
Thanks for that. There are probably more than 80 creating routes and scenarios for RW then, I do hope so!
I agree that statistics are always suspect, and I do think that point needs to be made so that RS.com don't jump to any wrong conclusions.
regards Ted.